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NEWS: Shota Community, Other LiveJournal Accounts Suspended

birdboy2000 wrote:

What about destroying longstanding communities you've been hosting because all of a sudden someone complained to you as part of the anti-pedophilia hysteria? Or taking them down because you might lose money, even if in practice this severely curtails the ability of others to utilize their free speech?

Lincoln is said to have said "The Constitution is not a suicide pact." If a company feels it is in their best interests to restrict some speech on their own property, they can restrict it. You cannot say any damfool thing you wish in a shopping mall, for instance, and for the same reason -- offended shoppers are not going to shop there. Brutal? Yes. Undemocratic. Yes. But it is the fact that on your own private property, so long as laws are upheld, you can permit or restrict whatever you wish.

No one here is questioning that this is how the law stands. We're pointing out that it's a really shitty law which, in practice, curtails our freedom severely. And that livejournal is violating its social contract with its userbase, being total not-so-nice-people, etc.

Lincoln also, incidentally, spoke during a genuine war for the survival of tthe American union and the freedom of millions of African-Americans in the south, against which detaining an actively disloyal Maryland government seemed like a small step to take. You speak of the 'suicide' of companies having to *gasp* make similar promises to the one our government did, and NOT actively censor their blogging service. And I didn't see them on the verge of death before this, either; they're just trying to squeeze out a bit of extra profit. (The only threats they've recieved are loss of advertising revenue, and livejournal was profitable before it recieved a single ad.)

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They haven't exactly been giving warnings and giving time for said groups to leave in an orderly manner. (Thankfully, there *are* places which will take them, still.)

It's not the company's obligation to give warning. ANN, for instance, could remove this forum altogether in an instant if they wanted.

Not legally. Still means they're total dicks. It's a basic courtesy to do so and has the practical effect of censorship.

If a hosting company deleted ANN without warning, would it not have the practical effect of dealing great damage to it? Would it not effectively destroy all texts hosted there? It's not perfect censorship, it can't quash something totally, but in terms of practical effect it certainly does censor.

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Should you be allowed to fire someone, in your America, for, say, membership in the socialist party?

That is up to the employer. If he/she does not want socialists, he/she is not obligated to hire socialists or retain them in his/her employ (particularly here in California, which is an "at will" employment state, so long as you can prove you did not fire for gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or a couple of other criteria, you can fire for any reason -- or no reason -- you desire). Again, your free speech rights do not de jure prevent repercussions from others who object, for good or ill, so long as they do not express their objection through criminal activity (telling you "you can't say that here" if they own the property is kosher, but punching you in the nose is grossly out of bounds.) In fact, some jobs (particularly in the military and efense sectors) DO weed out members of inflammatory political parties as security risks.

So I'm "free", but good luck finding a job? Some liberty. Seems like only a difference of semantics between this and any dictatorship, unless I have a trust fund or similar means of wealth. And good luck getting a union going, in your market version of this country -- we can make more money firing and blacklisting!

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free speech but we can delete what we want at any time... that's not real freedom.

Well, then, where should the line be drawn? DO we allow everyone to say anything, anywhere, any time?
Because I am convinced that freedom is not freedom unless it is tempered by responsibilities to your fellows to make sure that one's speech is constructive to the community. And, before you say anything, political dissent is constructive as well.
I do not see how writing stories of sex between prepubescent children and adults is constructive to a functioning society. I mean it's not like the Ancient Greeks went out and said: "OK, we're scribing Socrates on Thursday, Pericles on Friday, Aristophanes on Saturday,...what we really need now is a first-hand account of Spartan sexual practices to really round out the intellectual caliber of Attica."

America...
Land of the free...
Void where prohibited...
Some restrictions may apply...

When they came for the Jews, I said nothing.
When they came for the Poles, I said nothing.
When they came for the Gypsies, I said nothing.
When they came for the Infirm, I said nothing.
Now they come for me. Who will say something?

When they came for the Jews, I said nothing.
When they came for the Poles, I said nothing.
When they came for the Gypsies, I said nothing.
When they came for the Infirm, I said nothing.
Now they come for me. Who will say something?

Abarenbo Shogun wrote:

When they came for the Jews, I said nothing. When they came for the Poles, I said nothing. When they came for the Gypsies, I said nothing. When they came for the Infirm, I said nothing. Now they come for me. Who will say something?

did you just make that up or is it historical? wow!

Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Kommunist.

Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen;
ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.

Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich nicht protestiert;
ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.

Als sie mich holten,
gab es keinen mehr, der protestierte.

The worst Nazi analogy I've ever seen in my life.

Abarenbo Shogun wrote:

When they came for the Jews, I said nothing. When they came for the Poles, I said nothing. When they came for the Gypsies, I said nothing. When they came for the Infirm, I said nothing. Now they come for me. Who will say something?

Don't you think this is a little melodramatic?

It never ceases to amaze me how people can equate someone's Lord of the Rings Underage Rapefest livejournal community getting deleted to the holocaust.

Have some respect for history, please.

Abarenbo Shogun wrote:

When they came for the Jews, I said nothing. When they came for the Poles, I said nothing. When they came for the Gypsies, I said nothing. When they came for the Infirm, I said nothing. Now they come for me. Who will say something?

Don't you think this is a little melodramatic?

It never ceases to amaze me how people can equate someone's Lord of the Rings Underage Rapefest livejournal community getting deleted to the holocaust.

Have some respect for history, please.

littlegreenwolf wrote:

What I find even more disturbing about this is that LJ doesn't even seem to be looking into the communities they're banning. Everything from communities of the Gothic Lolita fashion style to book discussions of the book Lolita are being shut down, all because of that L word.

The article(at this time) states they didn't target Lolita which suggests the group is homophobic if shota needs to be deleted, but not lolita.